


Rock 'n Rye

by FailureArtist



Series: Friendship & Stuff Cinematic Universe [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcoholism, Cults, Direct Sequel, Gen, Gore, Humanstuck, Partial Humanstuck, Religion, multiple character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:00:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21649444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FailureArtist/pseuds/FailureArtist
Summary: The twelfth Grand Highblood in human form investigates what happened to the thirteenth Grand Highblood in human form.
Relationships: Gamzee Makara/Kurloz Makara, Kurloz Makara/Original Character(s)
Series: Friendship & Stuff Cinematic Universe [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1532495
Kudos: 5





	Rock 'n Rye

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Backstory involving alcoholism and estranged fatherhood. Relationship with incestuous tones. Relationship between two first cousins. Descriptions of dead bodies. One use of outdated language.

Hank J. Korhonen, the Bishop of the Michigan Chapter of the Mirthful Messiahs (and on paper the president of the Michigan Alternative Insane Clown Posse Appreciation Club), set foot on the island where the sacrifice was supposed to happen. The sacrifice of the reincarnation of the “descendant” of the Signless was streamed throughout the world. The heretic was naked and chained for the world to see and though the junior member Gamzee wasn’t around it seemed to be going well but then…the transmission stopped. The Church hadn’t been able to get in touch with the cabin and now on Saturday they were going to see what happened for themselves. With Korhonen was his secretary Jimmie Rintala. Korhonen was an old white man with salt-and-pepper hair and a weathered face but he was still healthy and active. Rintala was a thirty-something white man with his brown hair in a professional cut, but he could still get down with the clown. Despite this being Church business, neither of them were in their regalia. Both of them were armed. 

It was a bit more than forty years ago, on an April day that was still chilly, in a neighborhood in Detroit that still had whites, when Korhonen was first introduced to the Church of the Mirthful Messiahs at a free seminar. The seminar was not called that, of course. It was something about “Unleashing Your Full Potential”. Korhonen attended a lot of seminars like that in the nineteen-seventies, hoping to find something, anything, to replace the hole alcohol had burned into him. The speaker, a Dr. Scratch, was a bald white man, only around five foot nine, and spoke in that transatlantic accent Hollywood movie stars used to put on. He was not someone Korhonen would listen to normally, but Korhonen was desperate after a weekend relapse drank away his heating bill money. The seminar was about tapping into the strength from past lives accessed through dreams and hallucinations. Dr. Scratch suggested that for some people, the past lives were not always human ones. Korhonen was experienced with reincarnation mumbo-jumbo and rejected it, yet the idea that past lives could be something extraterrestrial was new to him. There was also something appealing in the make-up of the rented room. The seminar had gathered not hippies or businessmen but instead good ol’ boys like him. He’d never gone to any New Age event like this. It felt more like the John Birch Society meetings he used to go to until he was kicked out. 

Afterward, he caught up with Dr. Scratch and all his dreams and visions about grey demons with candy corn horns came spilling out like he’d been given a dose of sodium thiopental. Korhonen wasn’t the type to blabber without drugs, a consequence of his Finnish upbringing, but here he was doing so sober to a stranger. Dr. Scratch nodded his head as he listened and at one point Korhonen felt like Dr. Scratch was acting like one of the doctors at the drunk ward when Korhonen got delirium tremors. Yet Dr. Scratch was listening and taking it in and he told Korhonen he wasn’t crazy or unenlightened. Instead, he was more sane and enlightened than the rabble around him. Korhonen met with Dr. Scratch many times after that. Often, Dr. Scratch was with a young, beautiful, Oriental woman he called his handmaid (he seemed to go through these secretaries a lot). He gave Korhonen bits and pieces of information and baby-sat him during trips until he revealed that Hank J. Korhonen had been the twelfth Grand Highblood of the former alien planet of Alternia. Korhonen had been the motherfucking space Pope. 

That beat all of the reincarnations he had heard of throughout his years in hippie circles. Atlantis was nothing compared to Alternia. Alternia might have easily conquered Earth. Instead, its dominant species was wiped out by a sonic wave. Yet now that the lost souls were being reborn on this planet, the Empire could be recreated.

So Hank J. Korhonen became one of the founding members of the Church of the Mirthful Messiahs. He was put in charge of the Michigan branch, which Dr. Scratch said was very important. The Church gained more and more members over those forty years, going under a variety of covers but most recently the Alternative Insane Clown Posse Appreciation Club. Meanwhile, Dr. Scratch himself started fading away from the public eye. Even Korhonen had not seen Dr. Scratch since 2011. All communication went through his latest Handmaid, who Korhonen thought was not as pretty as the earlier models. Sometimes Korhonen wondered if his mentor was dead and this Damara Megido was pulling a scam. 

Korhonen and Rintala walked to the cabin silently. Korhonen did not have the best memories of his homeland but he did have to admit it was beautiful. It was such a hassle getting control of this island, nicknamed Murder Island, but perhaps it was worth it. Soon, the two reached the cabin. It was a well-appointed vacation place. One-story but with plenty of room. The cadre were lucky the sacrifice happened here and not in a warehouse. Yet all was not right at the cabin. The front door was wide-open and there was a trial of blood all along the porch and through the dirt. Korhonen and Rintala both felt a prickling sensation, the one a hunter might get when something was wrong. Without coordinating with each other, they both drew their guns.

They entered the house. The couch was covered in reddish-brown stains and there was a long streak of reddish-brown along the beautiful hardwood floor, along with some random drops here and there. Korhonen examined the stains. It looked to be blood, dried up for at least a day. It hurt him to see a perfectly good couch ruined. 

“What the hell happened here?” Rintala asked.

Korhonen replied, “The hell if I know. Check the smaller bedroom, I’ll check the main bedroom.”

Rintala nodded and did so. Korhonen checked the main bedroom, his gun still in hand. The bedroom smelled as if nobody had washed the sheets all week and they’d spent that week having sex. Young people could be such slobs. There was still duffle bags and backpacks in the room. He checked the wardrobe and it was empty. Nobody tied up in it though there were many scratch marks. He looked under the bed. Nothing there but dust balls.

Korhonen left the main bedroom and joined Rintala in the second bedroom. It just had various girl stuff. 

“Nothing here,” Rintala said.

Korhonen quickly checked the bathroom. Still nobody there. Lots of hairs though. 

They checked the kitchen together. The fridge and cabinets mostly held condiments and a few stray beers. The trash can was full. The kitchen had clearly been used.

“Jesus Christ,” said Rintala, “What happened? Where the fuck are they?”

They left the searched cabin and walked around it with their guns out. There, in the clearing where the sacrifice was supposed to take place, was an enormous dent. Around that dent was three dead bodies.

“Holy fuck!” Rintala yelled.

Korhonen just shuddered. He’d seen death before many times.

He walked over to see exactly who they are. Quickly, he found they were Damara, Meulin, and Kurloz. Damara had a huge hole in her chest that looked impossible and almost cartoonish. Meulin had three deep puncture wounds in her chest. Kurloz, poor Kurloz, was the worst. He had been both disemboweled and stabbed. Despite his experience, it was now Korhonen felt sick.

The secretary had often been cold and cutting to Korhonen and pretty much everyone male, so he did not miss her much. He was more surprised she was dead. The reincarnated greenblood, Meulin Leijon, was a sweet girl, but her constant pestering to talk about his childhood in the Upper Peninsula bothered Korhonen. He would prefer to let that part of his life die. However, it was the third victim that Korhonen really mourned. 

Kurloz was supposed to be his successor. Korhonen remembered the happy day in spring of 2009 when Kurloz came to church. Kurloz was an eager pupil. He had been like a son to him and they had gone hunting and bowling and fishing together. Korhonen had even been the only man to top Kurloz. Kurloz did not get hard during it, but he was insistent that Korhonen give Kurloz what he had. Otherwise, they just fooled around. Neither of them found this sexual activity incompatible with their familial feelings. It was all part of the incestuous slurry that Korhonen be Kurloz’s father and Daddy. Korhonen didn’t love his own estranged biological children as much as he loved Kurloz. Now that beautiful man was lying with his guts pulled out like a fish a cat had grown bored with playing. Korhonen felt like crying.

“Gamzee is over here!” yelled Rintala, “He’s been stabbed!”

Korhonen did not care as much about Gamzee. He felt towards that young man the same way he felt about his estranged biological children. Objectively, Gamzee was important, but also objectively he was very, very stupid. 

Rintala jogged back over to Korhonen. 

He asked, “What the hell do you think happened, sir? Did someone rescue the heretic? Are there new Sufferists? Holy shit, new Sufferists!”

“Shut up, Jimmie.”

“Sorry, sir.”

Korhonen could feel the tears pricking his eyes. He just couldn’t cry, not in front of Jimmie. 

“Let’s go,” Korhonen said.

They walked slowly around the cabin until they got to the front. Korhonen looked at the cabin fornlornly. Oh, what stories those four walls could tell.

Then, Korhonen’s phone buzzed. He holstered his gun so he could look at it. The phone showed a text from Dr. Scratch. Korhonen wondered how it could say it was from Dr. Scratch when he did not have a listing in his contacts for Dr. Scratch. He had one for Scratch’s secretary but the man himself was too secretive to call or text directly. 

Hello, Hank J. Korhonen.

“Who is it?” Rintala asked.

Korhonen did not answer his secretary. Instead, he typed “Who are you?” back at this “Dr. Scratch”.

I am D. O. C. Scratch, of course. You know me.

Korhonen typed: “Sorry, sir. What do you want from me?”

I see you have found the bodies. A word of advice: Do not turn your back on them.

Korhonen ran around the cabin to check the bodies. Rintala followed him. They both found the bodies were gone. Korhonen typed rapidly on his phone.

“Did you take the bodies? Did you kill them?”

Calm down, Hank. Watch this video.

There was a link in that text. Rintala looked over Korhonen’s shoulder.

“Is that…him?” Rintala asked.

Korhonen nodded.

“Well, I don’t think you should click that link. It might be a virus.”

Korhonen decided to ignore his secretary. His secretary might know computers but he did not know Dr. Scratch. Korhonen was desperate to find out what happened. So he clicked the link. 

[ A video played.  ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21638248)

“It’s Her…” Rintala mumbled, “She’s here.”

Korhonen knew Rintala was right. Her Imperious Condescension was here. Yet at this cost? He held back his tears with his Finnish-American reserve. 

Then, he saw the Nearly-Right Sacrifice by her throne. She had taken him? Did She kill the Devotees who only wanted to serve Her? And She was so pleased with Karkat Vantas’ castration. She did not want humans to reproduce. He personally regretted his reproduction but for humans to not reproduce as a species was horrifying. She meant to castrate not just the heretics. 

As the video went on, Korhonen’s heart sank instead of rising like it should have. Was this the invasion he had spent so many decades preparing for? Was he responsible for unleashing this horror on the world? She was beautiful and imperious but possibly too imperious. No, he told himself this was a good thing. It had to be a good thing. She might seem intimidating in this video, but it was all a joke. She was Down with the Clown. She would lead them to the Paradise Planet. 

“Sir, are you okay?” Rintala asked. 

It was then Hank J. Korhonen realized he was crying. 


End file.
